jce (07/07/82)
someone suggested to me that person is sexist, since it contains the word son. perhaps it should be perperperperperperperperperper......
jon (07/07/82)
Person is sexist, because it contains 'son' : should be perchild. perchild is age-ist : should be peroffspring. peroffspring is season-ist: should be peroffseason. Peroffseason is sexist: should be peroffseachild. ...
jj (07/07/82)
My own idea of the proper address for general use is the word "creature". Don't you think that chairman, chairperson, chairperchild, etc,etc, is a bit humanocentric? Why not creature. Why descriminate by species or genera, or even kingdom? Dear chaircreature: Now THAT has a ring to it! For those of you who take me seriously, I suggest that you reconsider your sensitivity to the issue. Until the language develops a non-gendered pronoun and personification noun, the issue will not be solved. Personally, I thought that chairman meant, from its roots, "the hand of the chair". I further thought that woman was from the anglo diminutive of hand, i.e. little hand. Whether or not this is sexist is an independant arguement. I do insist that the use of the word person in all non-specific references to people is a very ineffecient use of language, i.e. "Whether or not the <insert descriptive noun> knows, he/she <or that person> is in for a surprise." is hard to read and in some cases ambiguous if the third person male is not used. The convention of the third person male for the linguistic equivelent of the algebraic "x" contains some important information, and is difficult to replace. In such cases I will use the third person male pronoun. In such cases I am trying to convey information, not to determine gender. Please respond accordingly. flame off: rabbit!jj
aark (07/08/82)
Using "creature" instead of "man" or "person" in words such as "chairman - chairperson - chaircreature" might pacify those who dislike sexism and anthropocentricity. However, a "creature" is something that has been created, thus implying the existence of a Creator. Now the atheists and agnostics are unhappy. You can't please all the people all the time . . .
jcwinterton (07/13/82)
Let's steal from Poul Anderson and refer to sophonts instead of persons. This gives us neat words like chairsophont, redacting sophont, etc. This carried discrimination out of everything unless someone would like to stand up for blocks of wood, stones etc. John Winterton.
johnr@tekmdp.UUCP (John Rutis) (10/07/83)
I have noticed in the last few years that the use of "people" as the plural of "person" has dropped off drastically in favor of the word "persons". Some people don't even seem to know the word "people" exists. Does anyone have any facts or theorys why this is happening?
stevesu@bronze.UUCP (10/09/83)
The continual use of the word "persons" would actually make a
good topic for a nice incendiary net.flame article. I can't
stand that word. I think "people" is far more preferable and
sounds much nicer. I guess the people using "persons" are trying
to be very serious and think that "people" sounds too personal.
I think "persons" sounds terribly impersonal. What's wrong with
a personal word when it's people we're describing?
Steve Summit ed@unisoft.UUCP (10/10/83)
The only reason I can guess that "persons" is becoming the plural instead of pepole, is that in much legalese it is used, presumably to distinguish it from the legitimate use of people as a singular (actually, it's collective, not singular, but it acts singular and can be pluralized to peoples). Ed Gould ucbvax!mtxinu!ed
notes@ucbcad.UUCP (10/10/83)
#R:tekmdp:-228200:ucbesvax:6900007:000:1272
ucbesvax!turner Oct 9 14:46:00 1983
Re: "persons" vs. "people"
Why does this kind of thing happen? I think it's because, somehow,
people equate "legitimate" with "technical"--if a given word has any
possible sentiment behind it, it must be scrubbed. An example from
a language workbook used in remedial reading:
"To effectively utilize this product, it is suggested that..."
What they meant, of course, was "For best results, we suggest that you
use this book in the following ways...". But "best"? That's subjective.
"we"? NO NO! "we" don't exist! "you"?! NO!! "YOU" don't exist either!
(The passive construction here is a dodge, one that allows the authors
to scrape by without referring directly either to themselves or their
audience.)
I see a lot of this kind of writing in textbooks on remedial learning and
speech pathology (a friend of mine is doing graduate study on these.) It is
the language of psychology, at least as it was transformed under the
influence of B.F. Skinner into something scoured of personality.
Of course, there is nothing "scientific" about it, per se. "People" has
more depth (and ambiguity) than "persons"--it is precisely the *sterility*
of the latter term that attracts people who wish to sound more legitimate.
---
Michael Turner (ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner)shebs@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley Shebs) (10/12/83)
"people" has been overused by communists, and has gotten all kinds of socialistic connotations. "persons" is a newer word, and still relatively free of connotational baggage :-) stan the l.h. utah-cs!shebs
dinitz@uicsl.UUCP (10/12/83)
#R:tekmdp:-228200:uicsl:8600022:000:1863 uicsl!dinitz Oct 11 15:49:00 1983 My pet armchair-theory is that "people" vs "persons" is a cyclical phenomenon, like slang expressions (e.g. hep vs hip vs with-it, cool vs neato vs groovy, or far-out vs outrageous vs wierd), or specialized jargon (e.g. Data Processing vs Operations Research vs Management Information Systems vs Executive Decision Support Systems). People who use "persons" today may just want to sound different from everyone else. But the fad catches on, and soon lots of people say "persons." My guess is that soon this will sound too "normal," and some non-conformist will start using "people" again -- the cycle becomes manifest. However, there is some puzzling evidence to be mentioned. At least to this native speaker, "people" is not completely interchangable with "persons." For example, the phrase I used above, "lots of people," would have sounded very awkward to me if it had been "?lots of persons." On the other hand, "many persons" sounds as good to me as "many people." As far as semantics goes, "persons" (for me) conjurs up the notion of individuals -- that is, discrete human beings. "People" is more group-like, more general. "Persons" seems to pick out certain members from a group, whereas "people" seems to collect a subset. Compare: "Most people don't like espresso, but some do." "*Most persons don't like espresso, but some do." "Persons" feels strange when speaking of uniformity or homogeneity. Compare: "Some people are not trustworthy." [implies a generalization] "Some persons are not trustworthy." [I have certain ones in mind] Compare: "A number of people do that." [emphasizes the size of the group] "A number of persons do that." [singles out the few individuals, and draws attention to them, rather than their number] Does anyone have any evidence that confirms or runs counter to this? Rick Dinitz ...!uiucdcs!uicsl!dinitz
chris@grkermit.UUCP (Chris Hibbert) (10/12/83)
I'm a libertarian, and I use "persons" in political discussions when I
want to emphasize that the groups I am talking about are composed of
individuals. I usually use this in response to some comment that
implies that some group of people has some additional rights because
they are "a community" ("the common good"). Emphasizing the persons in
the group helps me point out (through language) that I don't believe
there are any rights except individuals' rights.
It's not always clear to me that my audience understands the
distinction I'm trying to draw.